Thursday, November 19, 2015

An Edible Blast from the Past --


Part of my ongoing attempt at de-clutterization has been sifting through stacks of recipes -- some printouts, some torn from magazines, and some hand-written by friends or family. 

Here's one I copied about forty-five years ago. 



 It was on our great motorcycle camping trip and we were in a small camp in a beautiful apple orchard somewhere in Devonshire. In the farmhouse kitchen, where we paid our camping fee and purchased some supplies, a fragrant dark loaf was cooling on the table. 

"Is that for sale?" I asked the farmwife.
"No, dear, it's for our tea."

She told me she called it caravan cake as she'd gotten the recipe from a camper in a caravan and she was kind enough to give me the recipe. 


I know I made it several times after we returned home but at some point the recipe went astray. So I was delighted to see it again -- and put mixed dried fruit and self-rising flour on my grocery list.

Yesterday was bleak and rainy -- the perfect day to do a little baking.



CARAVAN CAKE

1 lb. mixed dried fruit (cut up now or later)
1/2 lb. butter
1/2 lb. brown sugar
1 cup cold water

Put into a pan. Bring to a boil and cook for twenty minutes. Cool. (The fruit was still in rather large pieces so I took the kitchen scissors to it.)


Now add  12 0z. (which I estimated to be a cup and a half, not having kitchen scales) self rising flour and three beaten eggs. 


Put into large greased loaf pan and bake at 350 for an hour and fifteen minutes.

Enjoy.


8 comments:

Thérèse said...

Englisk cake, miam miam, delicious! Now it's time for Christmas English pudding...
I love your cup!

Ms. A said...

Trying to imagine what I might find if I ever decided to organize the clutter. I have to say organize, because I doubt I would get rid of anything.

Harbinger said...

And I thought I was the only one who would use that much butter. ;)

Barbara Rogers said...

How absolutely yummy sounding!

Jime said...

Yes, The additions to the cake are endless. And wonderful Malaprop's close by to find a book for reading

Glenda Beall said...

This looks absolutely delicious, Vicki. I will have to try this, but only I would eat it with all the butter, I'm afraid.

NCmountainwoman said...

I'll have to give that a try. You're right. The weather set me to baking as well. Banana bread. Made the house smell wonderful as it cooled.

Vagabonde said...

This looks like a yummy bread – I am copying the recipe.
As for you post of yesterday on fear – I read somewhere on the Net a while back – and have tried to find it again, but did not – that an international survey was made on fear, and US citizens were found to be the most scared in the western world. No surprise there. This is a country working on fear, and for a long time.